


First Among Equals

by zedille



Series: haven under the hill [2]
Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Canon-Typical Behavior, Gen, Misogyny, Root: "women? in MY recon?!?!"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29444808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zedille/pseuds/zedille
Summary: Root rejected 79 female Recon candidates before finally accepting Holly Short.Vinyáya has never forgiven him for it.
Relationships: Holly Short & Raine Vinyáya, Julius Root & Raine Vinyáya
Series: haven under the hill [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993291
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. seachtó naoi

**Author's Note:**

> The Doylist explanation is obviously that Colfer threw out a number in the LEPrecon short story without considering its implications, and also that Root got character development.
> 
> The Watsonian explanation.... here we are.
> 
> Thanks to [mentosmorii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentosmorii/pseuds/mentosmorii) for the last-minute beta!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > “You are the eightieth female to have made it as far as the initiation. So far none have passed. The equal-rights office is screaming sexism, so I’m going to handle your initiation personally.”
>> 
>> ...
>> 
>> Holly tried to smile, but she was too nervous. “Does the commander usually handle initiations himself?”
>> 
>> “All the time. This is the first one-on-one though. Usually he tracks a half dozen or so, to keep himself amused. But you get him all to yourself, ’cause of the female thing. When you fail, Julius doesn’t want the equal-rights office to have any reason to complain.”
>> 
>> Holly bristled. “When I fail?”
>> 
>> _LEPrecon, ch2 "Something Fishy"_  
> 

At his best, Root might be considered an old-fashioned gentleman.

At his worst —

* * *

They have their first real fight shortly after Root gets promoted to Recon commander. At this point, Vinyáya has been Wing Commander for several decades now. She’s already made significant progress in expanding the number of female LEP officers, but she’s excited at the thought of expanding her efforts to Recon now that a sympathetic officer is in command.

But Root reacts to her efforts with confusion and incredulity, not support. He rejects her carefully compiled dossier of potential female Recon candidates, and their conversation devolves into an argument.

They make up soon enough after that — Vinyáya concedes that Root’s first priority is establishing himself in his new position and that she came on too strongly. Root apologizes for his initial reaction and promises to give any female candidates fair consideration through the regular Initiation process. So Vinyáya waits.

And waits.

Recon Initiations are classified, but Section Eight has a long reach, and gossip makes up the rest of it. For one reason or another, some more spurious than others, some utterly absurd (male officers _ganging up_ against the female initiate), every one of those female Recon applicants is rejected.

Vinyáya starts losing her patience around the twentieth failed Initiation (and that isn’t even counting all the would-be applicants who were rejected or weeded out before initiation). Despite her other responsibilities, she maneuvers her way onto the LEP Academy teaching staff. They will at least meet _her_ standards before they go forth to be judged by his.

Increasing numbers of women apply every cycle. Not all of them are necessarily interested in Recon, so Vinyáya recruits those she can and directs them into those domains under her influence. Between Wing, Intelligence, and Section Eight, she has many fingers in many pies, and her name opens many doors.

But some of those women are interested in Recon. They enter the Academy one after another, each thinking they’re the ones who will make history and break Root’s streak of rejections. At first Vinyáya agrees, as confident as they are in their future success, but inevitably Root finds some reason or another to disqualify them.

To add insult to injury, some would-be applicants ask her, “You’re great personal friends with Root, aren’t you? Could you give me some tips?” But to this, Vinyáya has no answer. It galls her to admit that her influence ends there, but she’s tried playing that card with Root already, and it had no effect.

She tempers her advice, changing her tone to something more pragmatic and less idealistic. But still the candidates still get rejected, one after another.

* * *

After the forty-first applicant, when all the male applicants teamed up to sabotage the female applicant, Vinyáya confronts Root. 

“They aren’t good enough,” Root says dismissively. “To keep up they have to be _better_ than the men. You managed it, and so can they.”

“Do you hear the words coming out of your own mouth? That’s the definition of unequal treatment.”

“Recon is the most dangerous posting in the LEP. This is for their own good.”

“Their own good, as _you_ define it. You’re the one who’s deciding whether or not to reject them! That standard is what you make of it.”

“I’ve been putting all these applicants through the Initiation in your name. What more do you want?”

 _You should be giving these women a fair shot for their own sake, not mine,_ Vinyáya wants to say, but she knows she’s wasting her time.

From her own experience, she will concede that Root has a point about the double standard, but he’s too caught up in his patronizing, paternalistic self-righteousness to acknowledge how he’s perpetuating it. Root’s high regard for her should be flattering, but not when it’s being used against other women.

Vinyáya storms out of his office.

They don’t talk to each other outside of a professional context for the next thirty years.

* * *

Vinyáya refuses to believe that Recon is so dangerous that there is no woman who can meet its demands.

(Root’s standards, on the other hand…)

* * *

The thing is, Root is correct that Recon is a dangerous, high-fatality posting.

The squad has always had personnel shortages. The other officers of Root’s generation have all retired or died, one by one. Major Evergreen is the last of his Academy class, and the last of the mid-tier Recon officers, but he retires for medical reasons shortly before Short’s Initiation. The logical response to Root’s intransigence would be to replace him, but there simply are no Recon officers with appropriate seniority who could do the job. From all reports, Root’s considering Trouble Kelp as his eventual successor, but he’s far too green to do the job now.

So Vinyáya is stuck with Root. She makes herself play nice with him — Haven, after all, is their priority. There’s no use integrating the LEP if they’re all dead or overrun by the Mud Men. So she votes to fund his budgets with appropriate annual adjustments for inflation and she supports his efforts on the Council, sheltering him from its treacherous currents. Vinyáya will not let their personal differences put the People at risk.

To the outside observer, they’re still close allies and personal friends. Vinyáya holds up her side of appearances, and Root — still blissfully oblivious of Council politics — remains unaware of her deepening anger. She knows what the office gossip says about them, but she disregards it. She is Root’s staunch supporter only as one staunches a wound to stop it bleeding.

* * *

Holly Short, like so many of her Academy classmates, is a promising officer with a good head on her shoulders and even better instincts. Even after she crashes the shuttlepod on her first try, Vinyáya sees enough potential in her that she’d happily accept her into Flight.

Short, of course, says she wants to join Recon.

There was a time that Vinyáya would have encouraged her, as she encouraged all those women who came before. That time is long past, but her subtle advice that Short should consider other career options is disregarded. Short graduates the Academy as set on Recon as she was when she enrolled, much good that that will do her.

Vinyáya wishes her well, but she wished so many other women well as well, and look where it got them. Recon under Root is the last LEP holdout. Even Retrieval had a female officer-affiliate when Vinyáya was their pilot.

* * *

Well.

Vinyáya can still be surprised, after all.

* * *

After everything that happens on Short’s Initiation — even though that Initiation ends with the successful apprehension of several wanted criminals — Root still will not yield. Short only gets in on a technicality by holding his word against him, for once forcing him to apply the same standard he applies to the male applicants.

When they get back to Haven, Root unbends enough to come to Vinyáya first with the news. “This isn’t over,” he says. “This doesn’t change anything. Short still has to prove herself. I’m holding her to the same standards as all my other officers.”

Vinyáya says nothing, but she wonders — _what more can he want? Must his male subordinates prove themselves to him over and over like this?_

The more things they change, the more they stay the same.

* * *

If Root really were applying the same standard he applies to his male officers, that would be one thing — but instead he holds Short to some poorly-defined higher standard, and one he keeps redefining at his whim. Moving the goalposts, as it were. Even so, Short ably handles all of Root’s criticisms and overinflated expectations. The months pass, and Short’s successful missions accumulate one by one. Vinyáya knows better than to think Root is that easily won over — the fact that he hasn’t moved to recruit any other women speaks volumes on that point — but she begins to hope.

Then Hamburg happens, the first black mark on Short’s record. Although the official post-mission inquiry indicates that Short wasn’t at fault, Root seizes on the opportunity to start maneuvering her off the squad. The gossip indicates that he’s looking for officer candidates to transfer in. The only currently unspecialized female officer is Corporal Lili Frond, who would be very poorly suited to Recon and that kind of field work. She knows it, he knows it, the whole LEP knows it — Root would be setting her up to fail.

Vinyáya did not wait three hundred fifty years for a woman to join Recon only to have Root push her out at the first, fabricated opportunity. She’s finally come to the end of her patience.

If Short is forced out of Recon, then Vinyáya will force out Root in turn. She’ll take her chances with whoever his successor might be.

* * *

In the end, it takes Short getting kidnapped for Root to finally change his mind.

(How _typical_ of a man to only value what he has when it’s taken away from him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be up March 8. Tumblr post & author's notes [here](https://zedille.tumblr.com/post/643139764414038016/first-among-equals-chapter-1-zedille-artemis).
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!


	2. ochtó

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > "Lobby all my supporters on the Council. I’m pretty sure Lope’s one of mine, and Cahartez, possibly Vinyáya. She’s always had a thing for me, devilishly attractive as I am.”
>> 
>> “You’re joking, of course.”
>> 
>> “I never joke,” said Root, and he said it with a straight face.
>> 
>> _Artemis Fowl_ , ch8 "Troll"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy International Women's Day! And thanks again to [mentosmorii](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mentosmorii/pseuds/mentosmorii) for all your help.

The Short kidnapping is a disaster on every level.

The thing is, Cudgeon is correct to bring up the bio-bomb to Root. Fairy law, both secular and religious, is very clear about the LEP’s responsibility to preserve the secrecy and the security of the Lower Elements and the fairy People. Vinyáya does not relish the thought of Short dying by blue-rinse, but better a single LEP officer than all of thePeople. Cudgeon’s mistake was failing to read the situation properly and suggesting the bio-bomb too early, before Root was ready to hear it.

As commanding officer, Root _should_ have acknowledged the possibility from the beginning, but instead he positions himself against the bio-bomb. This is for Short’s own sake, yes, but equally because Short’s life is now a symbol of the power struggle between him and Cudgeon. They’re old friends, members of the old boys’ club, but unlike Root, Cudgeon could never forget that Root outranks him.

Root makes his moves against Fowl, and is outmaneuvered at every turn. After Retrieval One is defeated and hostage negotiations result only in an absurd ransom demand, Root’s only move is to resort to sending in a magically-lapsed repeat convict, with no apparent other strategy to extract his officer. Vinyáya’s requests for more information go unanswered.

This is when Cudgeon calls Vinyáya, proposing to send in a troll.

Cudgeon is an unlikely candidate to succeed Root. His power base is in Retrieval, not Recon, so the extenuating circumstances behind this field promotion would be his only chance to hop departments. Even then, it would take Vinyáya’s support for him to make that move. But there he is on-scene, offering a clear strategy when by all indications Root is at a loss — and there _she_ is, the LEP’s representative on the Council.

As Root once did, Cudgeon promises to recruit women. Unlike Root, Cudgeon is well aware of the politics of the upper LEP, and he knows that no LEP Commander can long hold that position without the Council’s continued approval. Cudgeon is willing to bring on women not for their own sake, nor for Vinyáya’s sake, but for the sake of his own career. This cold calculation is in many ways more reassuring than Root’s misbegotten sentiment; certainly it’s more reliable.

Cudgeon has previously worked well with women in other LEP departments, including Vinyáya herself. While she’s sure he has his own sexist biases and misconceptions, at least she’s never heard them spoken to her face. He can suppress his own personal preferences to secure her support.

The troll is a gesture of goodwill. The LEP usually doesn’t resort to such crude means, but the troll offers a clear mechanism for extracting Short from the hostage situation and neutralizing the threat Fowl poses. From Root’s minimal reports, she’s locked in a newly-built concrete cell. She should be safe there, and even if she were somehow outside the cell, a competent officer can stay out of the way of a troll, especially when there’s more attractive human prey present. This plan is not entirely without risk to Short, bound to the house as she is, but it’s an infinitely better alternative to the bio-bomb that looms large as the final guarantor of fairy security.

She still orders the wheels turning on the gold for the ransom, just in case — she isn’t willing to put all her stink-worms in his basket — but she’s given Root four hundred years and four out of the eight hours of the time-stop. She’s waited long enough.

* * *

Each member of the Council handles a particular aspect of fairy society, and out of respect is granted fairly wide latitude to handle matters. As the LEP representative on the Council, Cudgeon and his bid for a field promotion fall under her remit.

There are multiple ways for a motion to be brought before the Council. When Cudgeon presents himself and his plan to the Council, Vinyáya doesn’t sponsor him, but nor does she block his appearance, which would have required the approval of a Council majority to circumvent.

When Cudgeon submits his motion for a vote, Vinyáya doesn’t vote for him — but nor does she vote against him, as she had so many other would-be Recon commanders. Her abstention, for those familiar with the subtleties of Council maneuverings, speaks volumes.

The motion passes, 6-0.

(The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.)

* * *

The troll succeeds in taking Fowl’s brute of a bodyguard off the scene — this should have left the LEP open field and secured Cudgeon’s field promotion. It is in fact Short’s unorthodox intervention and overgrown sense of compassion that ensures the troll ploy ends so ignominiously, and Cudgeon’s career with it. 

Root owes Holly Short his continued career. He would have ended her Recon career, reducing her to a woman, not an officer, but instead that “mere” woman throws him a lifeline. The pawn becomes a queen on the chessboard, and the king lives another day. 

* * *

So she’s stuck with Root, after all.

* * *

The only good thing about the resolution of the Short kidnapping is that she makes it out alive.

Yes, Short managed to get half of the ransom back — but that means the People still paid out as much gold as they kept. There’s a deranged Mud Boy running around with knowledge of the People and with half a ton of gold to fund his delusions of grandeur. Despite successfully retrieving the hostage, the LEP failed in its basic duty to maintain the secrecy of the Lower Elements.

No one came out of the Fowl Affair looking good. Cudgeon was very publicly humiliated thanks to Root and Short, of course, but Root was the senior officer on-scene and responsible for the LEP’s actions. And Short — to hear Cudgeon say it, she was a race traitor in collusion with the humans, who sold out the People to protect her own skin. Why else would she have acted against the interests of the People and aided her abductor?

Cudgeon is being unnecessarily inflammatory about it — he’s clearly trying to discredit Short to clear his own name — but there’s a grain of truth in there, and he finds a ready audience in the faction of the Council particularly angry about losing the gold. No one will say to Vinyáya’s face that it would have been preferable for the People if Short had died instead, but Vinyáya can imagine what they’re saying in private.

Short’s postion reflects badly on Root as well, who is already newly vulnerable for having lost Vinyáya’s unconditional support. Knowing the way gender politics go, he’ll get all the credit for getting the gold back, while Short will get all the blame. At best, it’ll be a slap on the wrist for her; at worst, she’ll get drummed out of the force. Vinyáya is glad that Short survived, for what she represents to fairy society as well as for Short’s own sake — but she’s much more concerned about the fact that Fowl is still on the loose with fairy secrets and fairy gold.

When asked for comment, Vinyáya mouths some platitudes about being relieved that Short was returned safely, but that any further response must wait for the conclusion of a full investigative tribunal hearing.

The implied support for an investigation — yes, of the first _female_ Recon officer whose appointment she'd long pushed for, coming as it does after her implied rejection of Root — sets the gossips buzzing.

Vinyáya cannot regret it.

* * *

Root comes to her office soon after her public comments, asking her to quash Short’s upcoming tribunal.

As the LEP overseer on the Council, Vinyáya’s opinion holds significant influence. She _could_ suppress the upcoming Tribunal. If she issued a sufficiently laudatory statement of support and turned up half a ton of gold to make up what was lost (either from her own pockets or the LEP budgets), she could reduce the inquiry to a Recon-internal disciplinary hearing. Vinyáya has done this for Short before, after the failed Hamburg mission, when she intervened to protect Short and Root alike; there have been about a dozen or so other cases before Short where she also sheltered Root from politically motivated investigations.

But Vinyáya _does_ have serious questions about Short’s choices and her capacity for good judgment in the field, and those must be addressed properly. Concern for human children and civilians is one thing; concern for her own kidnapper is another. It’s unfortunate that Short is also the first female Recon officer, bearing the expectations of those seventy-nine women who came before her, but Short must be evaluated as any other officer would.

(Vinyáya doesn’t tell Root, _Turnabout is fair play. This is the same argument you made when admitting Holly in the first place._ )

Root argues that Short getting half the ransom gold back was the best outcome possible, but then again — the People still paid out the same amount of gold. The troll plan that Root so disapproves of (for its own merits, or because of the one who suggested it?) had already taken Fowl’s enforcer out of the picture, before Short decided to heal him. That intervention is why the People had to pay at all.

“What did Cudgeon promise you?” Root asks, clearly shaken.

Vinyáya can only reply: “Nothing more than what you promised me.”

Root clearly still hasn’t caught on, so Vinyáya adds, somewhat spitefully, “Honestly, I’m surprised that you're here fighting the tribunal at all. I thought you’d be raring at the chance to force Short off the Recon squad for good. You’ve finally got your chance to prove that Recon is too dangerous for women.”

“How can you say that?” shouts Root.

Vinyáya only raises an eyebrow at Root, who at last realizes who she was quoting. He sits there speechlessly, a vein throbbing in his forehead.

“Forgive me,” he says finally, and _that_ Vinyáya cannot do.

Oh, it’s one thing to forgive him for her own sake, for those 350 years of waiting and having her hopes dashed each time on the rock of Root’s stubbornness. But she cannot forgive him for the seventy-nine female candidates whom he turned away. No individual is entitled to a spot in Recon, but all of them were denied a fair shot.

“I’ll resign, if that's what you want,” he offers.

As an attempt to force her hand, this is an unusually politically savvy move on Root’s part. He’s finally realized that no LEP commander can operate without the Council’s support, and she already publicly signaled the fracture between them. Root is playing the gentleman again, throwing himself upon his own sword for Short's sake (a more jaded observer might observe that he's merely repaying the debt he owes Short). He and Vinyáya both know that she would have a lot of influence in picking his successor — that is, if she doesn’t move to take over the department herself.

“You'd do right by Holly,” says Root. “That’s all I can ask for.”

All Vinyáya can offer Short is a fair hearing, but that’s more than Short would get from the conservative faction of the Council, who would gladly run her out of the LEP without even the pretense of due process.

But there still are no good candidates to succeed Root — Cudgeon at this point is entirely unsalvageable, and Trouble Kelp needs another century or so of experience. Vinyáya would absolutely have to take over Recon, at least in the short term. When she was younger, she would have jumped at the chance to be more hands-on, but between Wing, the Council, Section Eight, and her duties at the Academy, she's stretched too thin already.

Vinyáya spent three and a half centuries biting her tongue as Root objected to female Recon officers, and told herself it was for the People’s sake. As personally satisfying as accepting Root’s resignation would be, she knows that casting away an experienced officer with a new Mud Man threat on the horizon would not benefit the People.

"Ask Short,” she forces herself to say. “She saved your career, she can decide what to do with it.”

Short is so notoriously kindhearted that she saved the life of her own kidnapper; she certainly would never engage in this kind of dirty backroom political dealing. Root takes it as the out that it is.

"I was wrong. There really is something special about Holly, and she'll prove that to you. She’ll go far.”

As could any of the other seventy-nine female Recon candidates who came before Short, had they been given the chance. Root’s now-unconditional support of the eightieth candidate does not make up for what he did to her predecessors.

Four hundred years ago, Root made Vinyáya a promise, one more honored in the breach than the keeping. Let Root honor his debts and make his promises to Short now; Vinyáya has done all she can for her. May Short have better luck holding him to his word. 

* * *

Root never actually filed the paperwork to get Short off the Recon squad.

Her promotion to Major never goes through, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr posting & author's notes [here](https://zedille.tumblr.com/post/645147125830860800/first-among-equals-chapter-2-zedille-artemis).


End file.
